Cardinal Financial Corp. CEO Salary Jumps

Cardinal Financial Corp. Chairman and CEO Bernard Clineburg received an 83 percent bump in total pay in 2012, earning $2.3 million, according to the Washington Business Journal.

Cardinal is based in McLean and is one of the largest financial institutions headquartered in Northern Virginia and Virginia, according to the company’s website.

The increased pay came mostly from a 90 percent bigger bonus, a fivefold jump in the value of retirement benefits and a $184,436 payment for unused vacation time, the Journal reports.

Clineburg received a $500,000 salary, a $950,000 bonus, $50,000 in stock awards, $558,131 in change in pension value and nonqualified deferred pay and $270,076 in other pay, including unused vacation time.

An investment in Cardinal stock would have grown 54 percent in 2012, according to the Journal. A peer group of similar stocks, the SNL Bank index, had a 35 percent gain, according to Cardinal's annual report.

Cardinal trades on NASDAQ under the symbol CFNL and was trading at $17.74 around 1 p.m. Tuesday. 

The company also boosted its earnings per share 61 percent to $1.51 in 2012, the Journal reports.

It is composed of Cardinal Bank, George Mason Mortgage, Cardinal First Mortgage, Cardinal Trust and Investment Services, Cardinal Wealth Services and Wilson/Bennett Capital Management.

The bank has 27 banking offices in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC.

High CEO pay was a major complaint of the “99 Percent” or “Occupy” movement of 2011. According to the AFL-CIO, CEO pay had grown to 380 times workers' average pay by 2011, the largest gap in the world.